68. Internationale Filmfestspiele

Berlinale Talents 2018 – Secrets

17.–22.2.2018

Berlinale Talents 2018 delves into the hidden worlds of film. With the theme “Secrets”, the 16th edition of the Berlinale’s networking platform focuses on the messages behind cinematic stories and images, and on unexplored paths into the film business. 250 international Talents and over 100 experts, mentors and Berlinale guests reveal their secrets of success and address the increasingly urgent social and political issues of how we share, disclose and protect knowledge. Berlinale Talents takes place from February 17 to 22, 2018, right next door to the festival headquarters at the three theatres of HAU Hebbel am Ufer, with more than 25 talks and films that are open to the public.

Berlinale Talents Programme Manager Florian Weghorn comments on this year’s theme: “We have nothing to hide: for everyone who comes to Berlinale Talents, open collaboration generates a special sense of community. But films are also mysterious, because they reveal and conceal everything at the same time. We are fascinated by the magic of the hidden and the secret bonds between creators, a film work and the audience.”

Berlinale Talents 2018 approaches its theme “Secrets” from multiple angles. In addition to the public talks, the 250 Talents participate in an interdisciplinary creative process in which trust and exchange play a major role: Through “Project Labs”, field-specific studio technique workshops, and in a variety of networking formats, they develop their project ideas and present themselves at the European Film Market or in the context of the “Talent Project Market” of the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The key visual for Berlinale Talents 2018 lends a visual dimension to the theme of “Secrets”: by not revealing everything, Talents, guests and the Berlin public are invited to complete the various statements with their own interpretations.

New record: 3,191 applications from 133 countries

Berlinale Talents 2018 drew a total of 3,191 applications – about 15 % more than in the previous year (2,711). With 1,107 project proposals, Berlinale Talents is also one of the most popular script development labs in the world. An international selection committee is currently reviewing the applications, which hail from 133 countries (Berlinale Talents 2017: 127). Of these, 250 Talents will be selected from the fields of directing, producing, acting, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, production design, film criticism, sales and distribution, score composition and sound design.

Berlinale Talents is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, a business division of Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH, and is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the German Federal Foreign Office and the German Federal Film Board.